Made baked beignets tonight, my first bread-like. I admit I fully expected this to be square bits of unleavened woe. Seth is currently on an elimination diet because his doctor thinks he might have a food allergy, but we don't know what. Right now, we're testing dairy and eggs. That's two of my favourite food groups right there. But, we are inventive, and this gives me a chance to cook a little more creatively. I poked around on the Internetz, and tried this recipe out substituting cow for soy (1 part soy milk to 1 tsp lemon juice = guerilla buttermilk) and butter for olive oil (didn't have margarine, and Crisco smells like shoe, bad shoe), bread flour for all-purpose (yes, I know there's a difference) and just for good luck, dug up the half satchet of yeast that had been following me around in freezers for three years (hey, it's yeast! it's immortal!), and uh, erred on entirely the wrong side of wisdom.

So, I knew this was going to be an adventure right around the time I put my dough together and got a surprisingly tactile glop. It looked a lot more like bread starter than bread. And it took forever to double. Like, twelve hours. And it was still surprisingly tactile yet stretchy glop, just a lot more of it. Okay, not the end of the world. We'll roll it out, worst case scenario, I get flatbread, then I send the husband out to buy a can of hummus. I can't even begin to tell you how awesomely tactile this stuff was. It was soft yet springy, pliant yet yeasty. There was no definable shape, just a slowly spreading...thing. I couldn't cut this stuff into squares with a knife. I had to cut it with a pair of scissors.

But! 400&deg F and twelve minutes later, I got golden brown puffettes. Not perfect puffettes, and they didn't fall flat on their faces after they'd cooled, but they were remarkably beignet-like. Dorian, my standard food testing cat, approves. They taste pretty good dipped in honey. I would even make this again, with actual bread flour, and margarine. Not giving up on the death yeast though. I have like, three more satchets!

Addendum: Though my standard food testing cat approved of the beignets, my uncommonly good-natured husband did not. One bite and he was done. His suggestion: the next batch, I try with real cow creams and butters, and eggs. It's okay if he only gets to eat a few. I should make them count, I think.